Dave Franklin
Musician, scribbler, historian, gnostic, seeker of enlightenment, asker of the wrong questions, delver into the lost archives, fugitive from the law of averages, blogger, quantum spanner, left footed traveller, music journalist, zenarchist, freelance writer, reviewer and gemini. People have woken up to worse.
Halfway – The Pedals (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Any band only a few years into their story that has already received the thumbs up from The K’s and The Sherlocks, and has opened for Toploader and Pentire,...
Blank Slate, Open Space – Alaskan Tapes & Blu Miles (reviewed...
If the core of this collaborative album lies in hushed saxophone, spacious piano, and a 4,000-mile distance between the two main players, then the...
Love You More – Clarity Liao (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
This third solo single and glimpse into her forthcoming EP, Dear, “Love You More” reveals Clarity Liao to be an artist who effortlessly blends singer-songwriter vibes with...
post mortem – Melanculia (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Sometimes, gaining a little insight into an artist goes a long way to explaining and understanding their music; knowing a bit about who they...
Innate Subjects – Tom Hancock (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
The singer-songwriter template may seem as if it was set in stone a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean that the astute artist...
Profanity – JK Jerome (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
If folk music at its best is about powerful narratives and indie music encapsulates musical accessibility, then this is indie-folk. If pop music is...
Dark New Days – Blueprint Tokyo (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Whilst the band is the first to admit there was no conscious decision to theme this 6-track EP around a single idea, on reflection,...
Sure Thing – EverWill (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I’m old enough to remember when bands like Sum 41 and Blink 182 broke the whole pop-punk thing to the world. Which means that I am also old...
Year of the Horse – Last Charge of the Light Horse (reviewed...
Some of you younger readers may not fully appreciate the tactile, tangible beauty of the vinyl format. In this world of downloads and digital...
Worlds Within Worlds: Rolling into G-Town with GALVEZTON at the wheel
With a new album, Ocean Cabaret, now out, it felt like the perfect time to catch up with GALVEZTON, aka Robert Kuhn, to find out about his life,...
Kings, Queens and Dream Machines – Saul Damelyn (reviewed by Dave...
Saul Damelyn not only creates music, but he also creates music about creating music…how meta is that? What I mean is that he is drawn...
Oori – Pharaoh’s Daughter (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
With still a month to go until Pharaoh's Daughter drop their new album, Songs of Desire, they have kindly given us a single, a...
Inside Above and Beyond (Stories Part 2) – Byorn Gold (reviewed...
Inside Above and Beyond sees Byorn Gold continuing to blur the line between autobiography and shared experience, crafting songs that, while rooted in personal...
The Bongo Boy Rock ‘n’ Roll TV – Episode 05 Season...
Spring has sprung, and with the arrival of the warm weather and the natural world bursting into life, new music also seems appropriate. After...
Cheer Up! – Matthew Spreen (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As I watch the results of the local elections come in with an increasing feeling of dread and resignation, Matthew Spreen’s latest single seems to...
Neither Here Nor There – Milarepa’s Cave (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
The man who brought you the exploratory and inventive sonic ride that is When Mountains Speak now leads us on a new, but no...
Frozen Meridian – Hallucinophonics (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It is easy to build a song, a groove, a presence by layering up lots of different elements, loading it with hooks, volume, and...
The Flesh Of The Innocent – Me The Machine (reviewed by...
The darker realms of music have, for the last fifty years or so, been a place where digital dexterity and electronic creativity have held...
Burnt – Lost Velvet (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Given that my job is to be ahead of the curve, writing about things before, or at least just as they hit the general...
Not Here Not There – Mortal Prophets (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Writing about the music that John Beckmann makes as Mortal Prophets is less like preparing to put pen to paper on behalf of just another record; it is...
So Long Solo – Collete Brady-McEntee (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
See, even pop songs can be smart and relatable. Sure, there is always room for the obvious pop “banger”, as the kids and seemingly over-caffinated...
Send Barron – The Heard Eye (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As I watch the local election results come in and sense my own country lurching horribly towards the same political spectrum of grift and...
Don’t Stop – River Dew (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It is, perhaps, poetically ironic that it is when we feel most burdened, most burnt out, most beaten down by the world that we...
Light Up the Sun – Sean MacLeod (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
As a taste of Sean MacLeod’s 5th album, That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star, “Light Up the Sun” is a perfect track to lead the...
The Conversation – Ava Valianti (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I don’t want to make every piece I write about Ava Valianti about her age, but this is impressive stuff for one so young. Actually, it...
Market Miracolo – Racines (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Okay, I don't understand the language being sung and spoken here but this feels very much as if the sound IS the story. I...
AIOME – Warahenege (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Described by the artist themself as the product of a “Manchester bedroom studio, in the dead of night, in between waiting for the ambient noise...
Moonlike – Mahta (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Although a great name for a record – evocative, otherworldly, mysterious – “Moonlike” is actually the literal translation of the artist’s name, meaning that...
Observers II – IUS (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
In the same way that Peter Far's IUS is more than just a musical project, so Observers II is more than merely an album...
Mystique – Michael Regina (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It is fair to say that Michael Regina has been around the block a time or two, musically speaking, and I mean that in...
